...not to heal them, to x-ray them. So, I'm still not sure why or how this works or was discovered, here's the article.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/video-the-scotc.html

Sometimes, the journal Nature shines a light on a strange, dust-mitey corner of science, and you find yourself staring at an unimaginably weird creature/experiment.

In today's issue, they dedicate several pages to the odd story of a couple of guys at UCLA who've built a machine for unpeeling sticky-tape in a vacuum at the rate of 3 centimeters per second for the express purpose of generating x-rays.

Amazingly, it works. Check out the video for proof.

The authors write that current theories of tribology, the science of things rubbing together, don't fully explain the amount of energy their machine generates. The search for a better theory of triboluminescence could lead to a greater understanding of electron behavior at the interface between two surfaces exhibiting stick-slip friction like, say, earthquake faults.